I tried the drawing-room. There was his handkerchief on the floor, to
prove that he had drifted in. And there was the empty room to prove that
he had drifted out again.
I tried the dining-room, and discovered Samuel with a biscuit and a
glass of sherry, silently investigating the empty air. A minute since,
Mr. Franklin had rung furiously for a little light refreshment. On its
production, in a violent hurry, by Samuel, Mr. Franklin had vanished
before the bell downstairs had quite done ringing with the pull he had
given to it.
I tried the morning-room, and found him at last. There he was at the
window, drawing hieroglyphics with his finger in the damp on the glass.
"Your sherry is waiting for you, sir," I said to him. I might as well
have addressed myself to one of the four walls of the room; he was down
in the bottomless deep of his own meditations, past all pulling up.
"How do YOU explain Rachel's conduct, Betteredge?" was the only answer
I received. Not being ready with the needful reply, I produced ROBINSON
CRUSOE, in which I am firmly persuaded some explanation might have been
found, if we had only searched long enough for it. Mr. Franklin shut up
ROBINSON CRUSOE, and floundered into his German-English gibberish on the
spot. "Why not look into it?" he said, as if I had personally objected
to looking into it. "Why the devil lose your patience, Betteredge, when
patience is all that's wanted to arrive at the truth? Don't interrupt
me. Rachel's conduct is perfectly intelligible, if you will only do her
the common justice to take the Objective view first, and the Subjective
view next, and the Objective-Subjective view to wind up with. What do we
know? We know that the loss of the Moonstone, on Thursday morning last,
threw her into a state of nervous excitement, from which she has not
recovered yet. Do you mean to deny the Objective view, so far? Very
well, then--don't interrupt me. Now, being in a state of nervous
excitement, how are we to expect that she should behave as she might
otherwise have behaved to any of the people about her? Arguing in this
way, from within-outwards, what do we reach? We reach the Subjective
view. I defy you to controvert the Subjective view. Very well then--what
follows? Good Heavens! the Objective-Subjective explanation follows, of
course! Rachel, properly speaking, is not Rachel, but Somebody Else.
Do I mind being cruelly treated by Somebody Else? You are unreasonable
enough, Betteredge; but you can hardly accuse me of that. Then how does
it end? It ends, in spite of your confounded English narrowness and
prejudice, in my being perfectly happy and comfortable. Where's the
sherry?"
My head was by this time in such a condition, that I was not quite sure
whether it was my own head, or Mr. Franklin's. In this deplorable state,
I contrived to do, what I take to have been, three Objective things.
I got Mr. Franklin his sherry; I retired to my own room; and I solaced
myself with the most composing pipe of tobacco I ever remember to have
smoked in my life.